Bernie Soria

Rohr Aircraft Memories
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Bernie Soria
Rohr Riverside

“Rohr was a good place to work; it wasn’t a place where they had a whip on you.”

Where were you born?
I was born in the Depression. In 1931, in Casa Blanca, California in a house there. I wasn’t born in a hospital or anything. I was delivered by Dr. Reynolds.

Where did you go to school?
Longfellow Elementary in Riverside, California. I went there because I had a bad hip and they had orthopedic classes. I did not speak English, and they did not have any Mexicans there. Then I attended Chemawa Junior High in Riverside. I walked from Casa Blanca to Chemawa, cutting across the orange groves. Sometimes there would be smudging and it would get in our faces. I attended the old Poly High on Magnolia and went to school with Jack Van Allen. We used to get our hot rods and burn rubber and cut class. During my Junior year in high schoolI broke my hip again in a car accident. And I had to climb the long steps at Poly (RCC now) in the back parking lot and I would skip steps with crutches to go faster. I graduated in Sacramento, and then came back to Riverside and went to night school for two years at Valley College in San Bernardino. I wanted to go to Korea, wanted to go so bad because my friends went there but they would not take me because of my hip. Food Machinery wanted me to go to school and take machine shop classes. Then I got laid off.

Why did you go to work at Rohr?
I got laid off from Food Machinery because they lost a government contract. It was on a Friday in 1957. We made amphibians, juicers for juice factories.

When did you begin your work there?
In 1957, on a Monday after the Friday I got laid off from Food Machinery. I didn’t waste my time.

In what department did you first work?
First shift (days).

How many hours?
8 hours a day.

What about overtime?
Not at the beginning. I didn’t even know what a rivet was or drilling.

For the first five years after I learned my job I didn’t have a vacation. There was so much work. Very seldom had weekends off.

Who trained you?
Would you believe it was a woman? Her name was Evelyn. She was awfully nice, and very patient.

What was your second job?
I went into the Strutline in 1965. I was there for 4 or 5 years. I was a Structural Assembler, B Classification. That was where I had all of my problems. There was an opening in San Diego for 6 weeks. To learn the job to bring back a contract to Riverside. Contract 131. Which gave you yourA Classification.

What was your third job?
Tooling in 1967 or 1968. Was a dollar more pay. Was a more challenging job. The tools to layout the parts and then installation on the plane. There was an F14 program – to make the bond tools for cutting core and to build all of the cowling and the inlet. At that time there was a big fighter plane, a big contract on it during that time that they were in the process of getting the Concord contract.

We negotiated jointly in Riverside for 2 weeks and the 2 weeks in Chula Vista. Since they are spread all over the United States, I think that is why Rohr is not Rohr anymore. Fred Rohr was a good man, a people man, not a snob.

In 1970 there was a layoff and I got regressed back to Production. Production finalized the assemblies and shipped them out.

What was your fourth job?
From 1970-1972, I worked as a Structural Assembler A in Production. On the F-14 I worked on the inlet. I had conflicts with supervisors. They wanted to put me on nights but I had seniority. So they put me in F-14 daily (short doors), weekly long doors. Rohr had a contract for these panels that went around the gas tanks.

They could not get the doors to fit right. And the managers were rotated so much. And they did not want to listen to the workers. And they finally got a young supervisor that listened. He got us what we needed to get the job done.

The Navy and Grumman were builders of the F-14 in New York. Rohr was going to tell the Navy that they already perfected the job. The Plant Manager asked me what we needed, “I’ll get you what you need.” I asked for an Engineer and the Engineer stayed because the Plant Manager asked him to. The Plant Manager said he would guarantee him that he would get everything he needed. He told me to set it up. I had to work Saturday and Sunday and have it ready for Monday morning to sell the daily door. I had trouble drilling the holes because the panels shifted. It had to be ½ inch zero tolerance. The money was good and my wife was patient. The Navy and Grumman people came in on Monday morning to see me demonstrate the panels. I was sweating but they were satisfied. They said they would give us another chance.

I always tried to give them a good job as far as being safe. When I would fly to the conventions I did not want anything to fall apart.

What was your fifth job?
In 1972, I went back to work in Tooling because they got more work. We reworked/refurbished bond jigs after 15 cycles. Made sure that we made a satisfactory part. The bond jobs were baked in the autoclaves. The material would melt and become smooth with a round contour. We worked them to make sure the bond tool worked properly and was satisfactory.

I also moonlighted. I drove a taxi, and I never told them. I started working in a gas station around 1968 or 1969. It was the Seaside Gas Station on Indiana and Madison. I worked 4-5 hours per night for 10 years. With the gas wars back then gas was 19 cents per gallon. Cars weren’t the gas burners like they are now.

When I wanted to go into Tooling they kept losing my transfer paperwork. One day they ran short of workers. Kurtz told me to apply again and again, eventually I got in. He gave me a pen and pencil set. Kurtz told me: “You deserve it, you do a good job for me.”

Did you have family members working in the plant?
My three daughters worked there for a time.

How did they get their jobs?
They went in and applied. At the time they were hiring a lot of people, there was a lot of work.

Did you see your fellow workers outside of work?
After work we’d stop by the Moose Club (on Cypress near Rohr) for a beer for a while, we were all members. We also went to the VFW on Tyler and Arlington. You could go there as a guest if you weren’t a member. The Whip and The Harbor for hamburgers. We would call Phyllis and she would have hamburgers and beers waiting for us. We used to eat at Capones for beer and pizza, and the Lucky Greek.

What were the company-sponsored activities?
The Christmas parties for families. Department picnics with the daily weekly doors at Wrightwood. Disneyland during the summer, it would close all day for the Rohr employees. Ensenada with the department guys. We used to use sick leave and take a day to charter a boat and catch Rockcut fish and bottom fishing with 5-6 hooks. We caught Albacore and yellowtail in San Diego, San Clemente and Newport.

Did you make friends working in the plant?
Yeah, in the department you got to know certain people and have them meet the wives and get together with the kids.

How was your family life affected by the hours you put in at Rohr?
I worked mostly the first shift, maybe 6 months on second, and 2 months on third shift.

How did you get to work?
1946 Mercury four door sedan. A 1939 Chevy that the owner of the gas station bought for me for $25. I took it to work and to the dump. It was also a second car that my wife drove. 1954 Ford pickup. 1957 Ford Fairlane 500 – one of the fancy cars with a hard top, one of the top of the line cars of that time. 1963 Buick Rivera. 1975 Chevy pickup.

Were you ever in management?
In the early 60s I took a Labor Management class when I was in the union so I could make good decisions. I was offered a management job but turned it down because I couldn’t be mean.

What would a worker have to do to get a raise?
The new hires had to be promoted within 3 years. From their contract the raises were up to their supervisors in the contract, it was not verbal.

What company benefits were provided to employees and their families?
Good insurance, it was affordable, that the company paid for. A nice comfortable job.

How was a personal disagreement between a boss and a worker dealt with?
One guy was fired because the CEO did not like him.

Did you belong to the labor union? What was it called?
The Machinists Union was called the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. What started the union was the railroad.

How did you get involved in the union?
I became a union member when I hired in to Food Machinery in 1952.

I told my co-workers that I could make changes. When I got into the union I won the election for Union Steward in 1964. I made Vice President of the local union and after 3 years I was a full time negotiator. There was an election every 3 years. Canvassing. Lobbying. Was in the Human Rights Committee. I got to know everyone at the conventions because I complained a lot, for the union. I traveled to Montreal, Seattle, and the 100^th anniversary in 1988 in Atlanta, Georgia.

I wanted to increase the strike benefits to $100 per week from $10 per week. They had to stand picketing for 2 days a week in the 60s, 70s, and the 50s, and 1984.

We got a jet for the international President.

When I first started in the union, the Vice President was ornery. He didn’t tell me how to get to the hotel. I always got there though. The Grandlogg reps offered to give my co-worker George and I a ride to the hotel but the reps left without us. We got a shuttle and went to the hotel and while we were waiting for the elevator we ran into those guys and they said that they had waited for us, but I don’t believe them.

Whenever I ran for elections I came in on a landslide. They always wanted me on their slate.

We did not care what was said we had people on our side, we had the votes.

When I worked in Production I wanted all of the B’s (classification) to be A’s (classification), because the B’s were treated like stepkids. B’s couldn’t work overtime or on Saturdays because they were B’s. We negotiated and at 330 in the morning we had an answer to our formal proposal. We got a wage increase, cost of living; insurance was the same and we got 21 classification upgrades. The supervisors in Tooling were mad at me. Everyone was shocked. This was the last thing I felt that I really accomplished.

The C Classification was later eliminated because it was down there, minimum wage.

When did you leave Rohr? Why?
1992. I turned 62. I was tired of working. I worked 45 years straight. That’s a long time. Why be greedy? If I did not get rich by then why not? I stopped working overtime 3 or 4 years before I retired. I let the younger guys get the overtime. I wanted to enjoy my retirement and my wife. That was the best thing - getting to know each other. To be with my grandson who was playing Little League and traveling with the school band.

Were you ever laid off?
I was never laid off, just at Food Machinery. I never drew unemployment. Unemployment was barely enough to survive. 


Interviewed by Sue Poole, March 16, 2007.